IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The 172 Brazilian municipalities that pre-registered to participate in the federal government's Minha Cidade Inteligente (my smart city) program have submitted technical projects and due documentation for the implementation phase, the ICT and innovation ministry said.

The deadline for the submission of projects was June 30. By the eve of that date, just 38 out of the 356 localities that expressed interest in the program had presented their projects.

The Brazilian government has launched a new national strategy to bring connectivity to the country’s 140,000 state-run schools.

The National Strategy for Connected Schools aims to connect all schools in Brazil to the Internet by the end of 2026, with quality targets to ensure that all students in the country are guaranteed access and can use information and communication technologies (ICTs) for educational purposes.

New development has also taken place in the vast majority of public sector bodies, says study.

Adoption and use of open source technologies is more common in Brazilian federal government bodies rather than their state-level counterparts, according to a new study.

Open source is more common at federal level, seen in 93 percent of organizations, while 78 percent of state-level bodies use it, according to the findings of the E-Government ICT edition carried out by the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br).

Brazil’s Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communications has signed a 60-month contract with Telebras to provide a continuous bidirectional data transmission service for the expansion of the Electronic Government Program (Gesac). The goal is to bring broadband internet to all Brazilian regions. For this, Telebras will provide its connection infrastructure, which involves the company's fibre optic network and the Geostationary Defense and Strategic Communications Satellite (SGDC).

Overcoming state dependence may be crucial for digital innovations to transform democracy by engaging more citizens in the political process.

Latin America has always been a region of deep contradictions, and this is especially true when one considers its politics and democracy. Despite its authoritarian past that continues to show through in some political practices and institutions, the region has experimented with democracy in very innovative ways in recent years. Likewise, whereas the region still suffers from deep social inequality and is not yet free from poverty and hunger, Latin America is the world’s third largest regional online market and its internet penetration rate is above the world’s average, half of which is due to intense smartphone usage.

A total of 31 European and Brazilian cities have teamed up to create a new initiative, dubbed Open & Agile Smart Cities Task Force (OASC), designed to make it easier for city councils and startups to improve smart city services. The initiative will be presented at CeBit in Hannover and will be based on the EU-funded Fiware open source platform. Fiware offers cloud-based building blocks that can be used to develop and deploy advanced internet applications for transport, energy efficiency, environmental or e-health services.

Some 84 million Brazilians are using services delivered online, according to government figures.

The Brazilian government estimates that more than 60% of the country's connected population - about 84 million people - is using digital citizen services.

The latest numbers from the Digital Government Secretariat (DGS) at the Ministry of Economy are based on research from the National Internet Steering Committee, which estimates that currently 134 million Brazilians have access to the Internet.

Face biometrics deployments in Brazil have been multiplying over the last two years and are proving increasingly controversial for their scope and discrimination. In January 2022, the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro presented legislation aimed at the “emergency contracting of a company” for the installation of 22 facial recognition cameras in one particular community.

The move is part of a series of actions by the state of Rio de Janeiro, which are summarized in the Integrated City program, a smart city initiative aimed at encompassing social services and infrastructure works for the communities.

Sweden is followed by Singapore and Denmark, which was in the number one position for the last three years. Switzerland (4), the United States (5) and the other Nordic countries together with Canada, Hong Kong and the Netherlands complete the top 10.

A South Korean government delegation will visit Brazil and Peru next week to promote its electronic government systems, the ministries of interior and foreign affairs said Wednesday.

The team led by a senior official of the Ministry of the Interior plan to visit the South American countries through Tuesday.

In Peru, the delegation plans to hold talks with senior officials from the Prime Minister's Office, and the Ministry of Transport and Communications. It is also scheduled to hold sessions to train Peruvian civil servants on the use of e-government.

Telensa’s Central Management System provides a step change in operational efficiencies and supports the municipality’s sustainability and carbon reduction objectives.

Telensa, the leading global provider of connected street lighting and smart city applications, today announced that its market-leading smart street lighting and Central Management System (CMS), PLANet, has been selected as part of a major streetlight modernisation programme in the municipality of Uberlândia, Brazil.

The Cinturão Digital do Ceará (CDC), which translates as Ceará’s Digital Big Belt, will be inaugurated this Thursday by the governor Cid Gomes and the Science and Technology Minister Aloizio Mercadante.

So why did the local authorities decide to invest around R$50m (US$28.6m) into this initiative?